Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 28TH FEBRUARY - 5TH MARCH 2020 | 5 "The question remains as to whether a leopard can really change its spots" Maxine Frerk, former senior partner, networks, at Ofgem, discusses Ofgem's decarbonisation plan and what it will mean for utility companies. The column is the first in a series of articles exclusively available to Utility Week members, in which Maxine gives her take on what regulators want to hear from the industry. To find out more about this, and other member benefits, contact JoNikiforov@fav-house.com or call 01342 332077. "They work their socks off and everyone who lives along here should be very glad that these guys are around" A caller last week to a local radio station in Shrewsbury praises Severn Trent for the work of its teams in cleaning up after multiple severe flooding incidents. See News, p29 Northern Ireland's Utility Regulator chief executive Jenny Pyper is retiring in the autumn after almost seven years in the role. Her successor has not yet been named. Pyper will facilitate a short handover period once her successor has been appointed. She thanked her team for their hard work and said she was "very proud of what we have achieved together to protect the interests of energy and water consumers in Northern Ireland". Six UKPN made it into the Sunday Times' list of best big companies to work for, for the sixth year running. For 2019 it was ranked tenth of 25 companies. £60m Amount paid out this year to Scottish wind farms to stop generating despite grid upgrades made to allow excess power to be exported. ENERGY Citizens Advice: networks get easy ride Citizens Advice has warned that Ofgem's methodology for determin- ing appropriate rates of return is still too generous to energy network investors. In its response to a call for evidence on the RIIO2 business plans submitted to the regulator in December, the consumer advocate said Ofgem appears to have over- estimated the level of financial risk faced by network companies. Ofgem determines appropri- ate returns using the capital asset pricing model, which features three key metrics. While acknowledging the difficulties in making direct comparisons, Citizens Advice said Ofgem's estimate of a key metric was significantly higher than it should be and it claimed the regula- tor should use figures at the lowest end of the scale. ENERGY Victory Energy has its supply licences stripped Portsmouth Council's energy supplier will finally have its supply licences revoked more than a year a‚er it was scrapped at a cost of at least £2.5 million. Ofgem has announced that Victory Energy, which was founded in 2017, will have both its gas and electricity licences revoked on 25 March. Rules stipulate that where sup- pliers have not commenced supply of gas or electricity within one year of a licence being granted Ofgem may revoke it. Victory was formed with a view to generating £2 million a year for the local authority but never became operational. Liberal Democrat council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson said the company would have needed "many millions of pounds of taxpay- ers' money" to get up and running and would not pay it back for up to eight years. The scheme was approved by the previous Conservative admin- istration and received significant investment in set-up costs. Ofwat and innovation: a webinar from WWT At 2pm on Monday 16 March, WWT – a sister publication of Utility Week – will be hosting a webinar exploring how water companies can work with Ofwat to deliver innovation. You can join Clothilde Cantegreil, the leader of Ofwat's innovation work, and Denise Massey, managing director of the Energy Innovation Centre, by resistering at: https://bit.ly/2PncK49

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